HENDERSON, N.Y. (AP) – Noted artist, dog-breeder and outdoorsman Robert Wehle lived on a scenic hillside overlooking this quiet Lake Ontario harbor.

His precisely landscaped home and studio is perched high up on 80-foot tall limestone cliffs, and sits amid open meadows and patches of red and white cedar stands. The kennels he used to raise and train his champion English pointers are preserved, inhabited now by the bronze bird dog statutes Wehle was equally famous for.

On Friday, Wehle’s former lakefront home became New York’s newest state park, and the first of five new state parks that Gov. George Pataki wants to open in the next two years.

“This park serves so many purposes,” said Bernadette Castro, the state parks’ commissioner, who earlier joined with members of Wehle’s family to officially open the state’s 169th state park.

“It provides the public with access to a breathtaking spot. It helps tell the story of a great man. And it will generate ecotourism that will benefit the region economically,” Castro said.

The 1,067-acre park is located along Lake Ontario’s Henderson Harbor, about 65 miles north of Syracuse, just south of the mouth of the St. Lawrence River and the Thousand Islands region. The state purchased the property for $2.8 million, but the Wehle estate has set up a $6 million endowment to pay for park improvements. The endowment also helps fund a 25-acre state nature center that opened in Alabama in October.

Wehle, who also headed Rochester-based Genesee Brewing Co. in the 1950s, died in July 2002.

Castro said the park has meadows, woods, wetlands and lawns and will offer a variety of activities, including fishing, hiking, bird watching, biking, cross country skiing and limited hunting.

There are eight primitive camping sites for tent camping, with more to be developed; or, for those less hardy, the fully furnished family cottage, which is available for $2,000 a week.

Wehle’s widow, Gatra, and two of his three daughters, watched the ceremony but did not want to talk afterward. Family spokesman Jim McGowan said it was the family’s first return to the property since Wehle’s death and it had been an emotional experience.

McGowan said the family considered the park “a marvelous legacy.”

Pataki in his January State of the State address, announced plans to open five new parks within the next two years and open or expand 20 additional parks by 2009. Over the last 10 years, the state has opened 18 new parks across the state.

Castro said the state has sites under consideration for its new parks but that the governor was not ready to identify them.